Suicide? It Ain’t Just a White Thing For many years, it has been believed that African Americans did not commit suicide, or that when they did, it was so infrequently that no special attention needed to be paid to it. Recent suicide statistics collected by the CDC and NIMH call those assumptions into question, however. While white men overall are more likely to commit suicide (completed), Young Native American men and African American men, ages 18-27 are more likely to die by suicide than their white counterparts.